8/13/2007

This is not the first time that the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius has appeared here at Verbicidal Tendencies. You can see 10 of his witticisms at this post by Serena. Some those may be duplicated here, but why should I confuse us by pointing them out?

I think it is safe to say that nearly everyone is familiar with the sayings of Confucius. When I googled "Confucius" and found the following, I had to scratch my head.

"To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; those five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness."

It had to be a mistake. So I thought I'd try another one.

"In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of."

There could only be one answer. Some clown had posted these as a joke. They were Pseudo-Confucius sayings. The Confucius we all know and love would never have made such ludicrous statements. He spoke for the common people, like you and I, not for lawyers and politicians. He wrote stuff we would want to include in our blogs, not a bunch of gibberish like those two examples above.

....So I went surfing again. Finally, after first reading a few, I found the real stuff. The following are really what